Part 3 (2/2)

”I don't see why they should land fish in the middle of the night,”

said Marion.

The activity of the people on the pier increased. More lights appeared there and moved very rapidly to and fro.

”Unless they're landing what they're ashamed of,” said Marion, ”I don't see why they're doing it at night.”

Mysteries always irritate me. I answered Marion impatiently.

”You can't be so foolish as to suppose that Conroy is smuggling. It wouldn't be any temptation to a millionaire to cheat the revenue out of the duty on a few pounds of tobacco.”

Several more carts followed each other in a slow procession up the hill. It seemed as if Crossan's entire staff of men and horses was engaged in this midnight transport service.

”Mr. Conroy might not know anything about it,” said Marion. ”It may be done--”

”I don't suppose Bob Power--”

”There was another man on board,” said Marion, ”and G.o.dfrey seemed to think that he was--well, not a very nice kind of man.”

”The fact that G.o.dfrey called him a cad,” I said, ”rather goes to show that he is a man with a great deal of good in him. Besides, as it happens, I know all about him. His name is McNeice and he is a Fellow of Trinity College. It's ridiculous to suppose that he's landing a cargo of port wine for consumption in the common room. Fellows of College don't do that kind of thing. Besides, he's a good scholar. I had some correspondence with him when I was writing my article on St.

Patrick's birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow.”

That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a dutiful kiss and went to bed.

I stood at the window and watched until the last cart had mounted the hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to the _Finola_. The town and bay were still again.

I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind, under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the _Finola_.

The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand it. Marion's smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from our sh.o.r.es. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest with any pa.s.ser-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot show a respectable past history.

I was driven back finally on my own theory--inherently very improbable--that the _Finola_ had, in the course of her voyage, netted an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get rid of them.

CHAPTER V

Bob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The sun, I recollect, was s.h.i.+ning so brightly outside that I had the blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob's entrance had much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the suns.h.i.+ne with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was, had not affected his spirits.

As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my literary work. I always absolutely hate it when G.o.dfrey is the interrupter. But I found myself quite pleased when Bob Power said that we ought not to sit indoors on so fine a day. Marion ran off to get her hat and joined us on the lawn. Bob Power led us straight to the garden, and when we got there, made for the strawberry bed. He owned to a pleasant recollection of the feast he had enjoyed the day before.

There is a good deal of the school-boy about Bob Power, and Marion is quite young enough to enjoy gorging herself with ripe strawberries. I, alas! am nearly sixty years of age. A very small number of strawberries satisfies me, and I find that stooping to gather them from beneath their nets tires me after a short time. Bob Power and Marion wandered far into the remoter parts of my strawberry bed. I stayed near the pathway. Their voices reached me and their laughter; but I could not hear what they were saying to each other. I felt suddenly lonely. They were getting on very well without me. I went on by myself and inspected my melon frames. I left them after a while and took a look at my poultry yard.

The rearing of poultry is one of the things which I do in order to benefit my country. Quite ordinary chickens satisfy my personal needs, and the egg of the modest barndoor fowl is all I ask at breakfast-time. But an energetic young lady in a short tweed skirt and thick brown boots explained to me two years ago that Ireland would be a much happier country if everybody in it kept fowls with long pedigrees. She must have been right about this, because the government paid her a small salary to go round the country saying it; and no government, not even ours, would pay people to say what is not true.

Her plan for introducing the superior hens into the homes of the people was that I should undertake the care of such birds as she sent me, and give their eggs, under certain conditions, to any one who asked for them. This I agreed to do, and my new fowl yard, arranged exactly as the young lady in thick boots wished, is my latest effort in patriotism.

The hens which inhabited it were very fine-looking birds, and the c.o.c.k who dominated them was a credit to any government. I watched them with real pleasure for some time. Then it occurred to me as curious that a government which recognized the value of good blood in birds, bulls, boars, horses, and even bees--if bees have blood--should be not only indifferent but actually hostile to our human aristocracy. For years past animals of pedigree have been almost forced upon Ireland. Men of pedigree have as far as possible been discouraged from remaining in this country. This idea struck me as very suitable for one of my light newspaper articles. I was unwilling to lose grip of it and allow it to fade away as Malcolmson and his cannons had faded the night before. I took a sheet of paper and a pencil from my pocket and sat down on a stone to make a rough draft of the article. Before I had written three sentences I heard Marion's voice.

”Oh, there you are, father. We were looking for you everywhere. Mr.

<script>